Gib-ana-laga

(Gibraltar/Granada/Malaga)

Dear diary,

Good trip. Highlights were:

1. Standing on the top of the Rock of Gibraltar and seeing Morocco and Spain, the Atlantic, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. And a monkey.

2. Fending off said monkey from an attempted burgle of my backpack. Monkeys might be cute but they are also shameless thieves.

3. Discovering that Gibraltar is some sort of bizarre tax haven so most of its inhabitants are poker players. And that it's the Tijuana of La Linea (Spain) in that everyone stumbles over the border each weekend for the cheap tax-free booze and shopping.

4. Granada. The city is fantastic. If you're going to Spain your itinerary should be San Sebastian (which I haven't been to yet), Barcelona, Granada, Sevilla. I could see the snow covered mountains of the Sierra Nevadas from the Alhambra, which is the coolest castle ever. Also saw gypsy Flamenco one night. In a cave.

5. Turkish massage in El Hammam in Malaga. I've always been a fan of hot water and steam. It's just a hobby I guess. I paid for a 15 minute massage and it lasted for 70. I'll forget about the part where my backside was on display for the people wandering past.

Bad trip. Forgettables were:

1. Mild weather. It never got above 19 degrees. Celsius. And I'm still no good at the conversion. It was far superior to London of late, but I had hoped for sweating of the 22-30 degree kind.

2. Sleeping arrangements. The question is always going to be whether I should overpay for a private hotel room or overpay for a 12 bed hostel. I'll still take the hostel for now since it probably means free internet and maybe a piece of toast in the morning. And the characters found in these places have tons of potential. One guy told me that Granada is superior to Sevilla because of the food and because the people there are more diverse (they aren't all Korean). At this point I realized he was evaluating the city based only on the hostel. He chose to stay in that evening.

3. My return flight from Malaga. British Airways: you failed me. I paid extra for what I thought was a reliable flight and you delayed me by 3 hours and returned me into London's periphery at 2am, from where I was forced to wait for a night bus, which connected to another night bus, which connected to me walking in the cold for the last mile.

4. Mi espanish is no bueno. Pretty Spanish girls insisted on talking to me even though I could only respond with one word answers or at the best a non-conjugated verb. Usually in combination with a grunt or two and maybe some hand signals.

5. Me kind of having a sore throat now. I think it's because I went through 3 seasons this weekend.